> At the same time I don't know why CNN and other American network report junk. Don't they simply report what American public wants to see and hear? Isn't that

> At the same time I don't know why CNN and other American network report junk. Don't they simply report what American public wants to see and hear? Isn't that a commentary on the quality of American viewers? They are in the business of selling the audience to the advertisers. That's the problem journalism is facing - funding. Maybe more fundamentally, the divide between the social value of journalism and the monetary value. I think everyone understands the first part of the problem - without money, a lot of journalism just goes away. You can't afford investigations, foreign bureaus, thorough research, etc. Even simple beat reporting gets worse when there aren't enough beat reporters to go around. What worries me is the relatively unacknowledged second part of the problem: Journalists end up doing MORE of the things that cost less money, or are more profitable, even if they aren't really good journalism. Talking heads, sensationalist stories, reprinted press releases, etc. There's also the more subtle corruption of PR agencies and political operatives that want to "help" journalists "understand" what just happened - even if the journalist is savvy enough to fight back, it still takes time (which is money!) to do that. The less resources the journalist has, the easier they are to manipulate. The social value of journalism is accurate information. But ever since Craigslist punched a hole in the bottom of the classifieds market and let out all the profit, journalists can only make MONEY by getting a lot of eyeballs in a short time. And everyone who's compared Reddit with HN knows what happens when information delivery turns into a short-term popularity contest for the public at large.